Claire Inwood's Beetroot Chocolate Cake

My favourite cake for winter 2012! Moist and rich with a puddingish texture, keeps really well. I have reduced the amount of sugar slightly from the original recipe. Forgot to put the baking powder in once and it was still OK!

Ingredients

Tip: The batter is very wet, you need to use a sealed cake tin, rather than a loose bottomed one.

Method

Heat oven to 190 C / 375 FLine cake tin with baking paperPuree cooked beetroot in food processor.Add cocoa, flour, baking powder, sugar and salt and process.Add oil, vanilla, eggs and orange zest and process again until well combined and even in colour.Pour into tin and bake 50 minutes.Cool cake in tin before removing.

Serve with a dollop of crème fraiche or on its own

Variations : You could add grated dark chocolate to the mixture at the end and process briefly for an extra rich cake.If you don't have a food processor you could try grating the cooked beetroot and hand mixing rest of cake.